Planned Parenthood sues over abortion clinic license delay

The organization says in a lawsuit filed Friday that Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration, through the Louisiana health department, has put up unconstitutional roadblocks to licensure.

Planned Parenthood has two clinics in Louisiana, but its New Orleans clinic would be the first to provide abortions. The lawsuit says its request for a license to provide abortions has languished for nearly 17 months.

The lawsuit challenges as unconstitutional both the delays in approval of the abortion clinic license and a 2016 law pushed by Edwards to block Medicaid financing for entities that perform abortions in Louisiana.